


Habit

by maximum_overboner



Series: Tailspin [2]
Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Oneshot, Prequel, black hat gets Reflective(TM), black hat listens to jazz and has a crisis of character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/maximum_overboner
Summary: When you live a long time it's hard not to fall into human trappings.





	Habit

**Author's Note:**

> a prequel to my other fic in the series, but can be understood on its own!

Contrary to popular belief Black Hat didn’t consider himself to be an angry creature. He considered himself to be a perfectionist, certainly, but not angry. He thought he was quite genial, compared to other villains. Even if he slit your throat the moment you turned his back to him he would give you a smile and a firm handshake beforehand. He was a man of exacting and specific standards, built over years and years of repetition, and the anger only came when they weren’t being met.

He puffed his pipe. He blew a smoke ring to see if he could. It was wispy and on the thin side, so he inhaled and tried again until he got it right. Rain battered the window to his study and the fire snarled and popped from the other end of the room. He looked at the papers on his desk, drawing his nail down the page slowly. He stopped, the words turning to fuzz as he tapped.

Black Hat had to wonder why he was still doing this. The imitation. On television it served a purpose as the average person couldn’t look at him in his entirety without dying and dead people make notoriously poor customers. It meant walking like a person, talking like a person and being…

He tapped his chin.

Not quite a person but _adjacent_ to one. But there wasn’t anyone to consider. He was alone. He could do whatever he felt like doing. For whatever reason he wanted. He could, at that very moment, transform into something terrible and wreak havoc for his own dark fun.

He picked up where he left off. Upon delving back into legalese he put the paper down again. He rubbed his temples and exhaled, unsure of what to do with himself. He shed his jacket and found this didn’t help. He stood, paced, searched his cabinet for a record he could tolerate and sat down again. He had plenty to do and no will to do it. The record played and the needle popped like the fireplace did.

When he asked himself why he did these things; he didn’t need to play music, he didn’t need to decorate his domain to suit his ‘taste’ and he didn’t need to acquire art, he told himself that it was a distraction. It gave him something to do in the inevitable downtime between his acts of barbarism. He told himself twice.

He withdrew the pipe from his mouth, examining it. He found it in the coat pocket of a man he killed years ago. No more special than any other smoking pipe and yet, despite that, he found himself using this one the most. Not through sentimentality, he knew, of course not, but out of habit. Though habit, he admitted, was _adjacent_ to sentimentality. It was, perhaps, too close for comfort. Black Hat’s unease grew as he felt something slink up to him, something that had followed him for years and grown larger in his shadow; why? Why, why, why? Why do this? Why seek out music? Why seek out paintings, or sculptures, why pay to have them made? Why smoke tobacco? Why smoke opium? Food? Sex? Literature? Alcohol? Why engage in any activity outside of the immediate gratification of maiming and killing? Why listen to the a record from a very specific genre of a very specific time period, why smoke from the same pipe every time, why wear a certain cut of suit? Why partake in any culture moulded by the awful little creatures that inhabit this miserable rock, and why, worse than that, like it?

He sat there, perplexed. For camouflage, he told himself. If he wanted to appeal to human beings he had to, on a superficial level, feign a shared interest no matter how shallow. He had to pretend to like art, pretend to enjoy wearing the suit and pretend to listen to music. That was what it had been at the very start, a researched and manipulative venture.

The rain fell and he continued to be by himself. Alone with his paintings, his pipe and his jazz.

 _Because I enjoy it,_ he admitted, defeated. He wondered when feigned pleasure became real pleasure and knew he wouldn’t have a chance of unpicking that thread, it stretched too far back and knotted too quickly. But it was what it was. So what if he liked a few things that weren’t destructive. He was allowed that. He puffed again, squinting at his pipe.

Some part of it was dependence, he supposed. He was smoking an addictive substance but even his forays into illegalities didn’t hold any risk given that he was capable of tampering with his brain chemistry when needed. Though he had cut back on the wine since the incident.

He shuddered. He swept the dust off the skull on his desk, tweaking its position. He thought about mumbling an apology but refrained for his own dignity.

He could snap his fingers and make it so that he never wanted to smoke again. Any need, gone. With an exclamatory puff of smoke, the embers died away.

“Bloody thing,” he muttered. He covered the chamber with his hand and exhaled gently to fuel the burn. When that failed he sighed, snapped his fingers, mustered a flame from between them and held it to the tobacco. Smoke trickled from between his teeth and the slits of his nose. He had been here too long, he thought. Far, far too long. Maybe this was a sign. He looked out of the window, musing. Maybe it was time to give in. He thought about Flug and Dementia, sticking his tongue out in disgust. No. No, that wouldn’t work. It was the reason he kept them around, the useless parasites that they were. It gave him a sense of purpose. If Black Hat finally gave in, succumbed to boredom and took a very long walk off of a very short pier the company would be left in their hands and, by extension, his reputation would be in shambles. They would run his good name into the ground in one week and the thought made his blood boil. They were too stupid to be left alone, like bumbling kittens in a knife factory. They were his sandbags by the roadside; protective and dense.

His last subordinate, now that was a henchman. Quick-witted, ruthless and a fabulous dancer. Very competent. An unusual trait in a subordinate because villains are ambitious and if they’ve got an ounce of cunning they try to strike out on their own. Admirable, he admitted, but inconvenient because it left all the dullards behind to do the legwork. Even he had a hard time finding decent help. Black Hat gave up on the idea of working for the day. He moved his chair back and kicked his feet up. He motioned at the skull.

“What do you think of all this?”

The skull, being a skull, did nothing. Black Hat chuckled.  
  
“Well put.”

There was a weak knock at the door. Black Hat groaned. “Come in.”

Flug entered. He was caught off-guard by Black Hat's position but said nothing.

“What do you want, Flug,” Black Hat said, “I’m in no mood.”

“You’re never in a chatty mood, so there’s not much point clarifying--”

Black Hat gave him a look. Flug trailed off, quailing. “Y-You see,” Flug said, scratching his neck, “I was working in the lab and Dementia stopped by, and you know when that happens that something terrible--”

Black Hat hissed in warning. “Pertinent information, idiot. I’m not here to listen to your one-man show; tell me what you want or get out.”

Flug gathered his courage. “She let one of my… Experiments out. One of the larger ones. She’s, um… Riding it in the front yard.”

Black Hat covered his face with his hands.

“Nothing I’ve tried has worked,” Flug babbled, “so I was wondering if you could go outside and maybe… Put it down? Forcibly.”

“Kill what; the monster or Dementia?”

“The monster, boss.”

“Oh,” Black Hat said, rising to his feet. “Fine, whatever.”

Flug sighed, relief in his voice. “God, thank you. I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry to come to you like this.”

“Don’t make a habit of it,” Black Hat grunted.


End file.
